Management Skills in IT: Shaping your career
63
Management Skills in IT: Shaping your career
63eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781780171036 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT |
| Publication date: | 11/07/2011 |
| Series: | EBO Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 63 |
| File size: | 324 KB |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
DO WE NEED A SOFTER SIDE?
Jooli Atkins, August 2011
I was interested to read that, according to recent CW Jobs research, the lack of 'soft' skills is the latest IT career regression factor. My experience, however, is that many IT professionals believe that they don't need 'soft' skills and that technical skills are the only ones needed for an IT role.
For many years, I have designed, developed and delivered workshops to help IT professionals develop their communication, customer service and training skills. So often the IT managers recognise the need for such skills in their staff, but when the staff themselves are 'sent' on a course, they are often resistant and have no understanding of why such skills are important in their role. Of course that could be because the managers are 'sending' their staff and don't have the relevant skill to prepare them sufficiently in the first place, but it is also apparent that technical skills are often seen as more important.
One such experience was with a group of IT helpdesk staff for a local authority whose role was to support teachers in schools. They were attending a 'Customer Service for IT Professionals' workshop and, as part of this, were asked to represent their customers in some way. Most groups chose to draw a representation, which had disturbing similarities. Customers were represented as stupid, illiterate (in IT terms) and incapable of understanding simple (in the helpdesk staff 's terms) instruction – and these are qualified teachers, remember.
The helpdesk staff's perception of their customers was compounded by the fact that they saw no benefit in gaining any insight into their customers' perspective because 'if they don't get it ... it's not our fault!' You may be pleased to know that a few customer/supplier barriers were broken down that day, but not before a lot of soul-searching from some.
Contrast that with another experience with an internet giant (beginning with Y), whose specialists are worldwide experts in some of the narrowest of technical fields and so are often asked to train others in their subject-matter expertise. We were asked to help them to deliver more effective learning. At the end of the workshop, one of the cleverest men I have ever met admitted that he had 'been doing it wrong all this time'. He absolutely 'got' how enhancing his soft skills could help him to be an even better technician. To a man (because, sadly, they were all men) that team benefited from their learning and could see how improving on their soft skills would help them to help others. Maybe it was the organisation that made the difference – they were very open-minded and not threatened by the 'softer' demands on them. They had the technical skills, but they also understood that that is not all that's needed to make us good at our jobs.
So how can we get IT professionals to accept that they need help? Perhaps this CW Jobs research will help, but I doubt that the people who need it will even look at the Computer Weekly article because it is categorised under IT Management, Staffing and Training.
CHAPTER 2EQUIPPING IT LEADERS
Simon Mitchell, December 2010
IT people can have great technical skills, which set them up for promotion, but are they the right skills to take them on to the next stage in their professional career? Simon Mitchell provides a valuable insight into some of the difficulties that emerging IT leaders face when moving from an operational to a leadership role and how companies can support them in this critical transition.
Being invited to take the next step into a management or leadership role can be flattering and exciting and, understandably, many accept a rise in salary and status without full consideration of the skills and attributes required to make the new role a success.
Yet as a person progresses into management, skills often become more about people and less about technical competency and those that are not given the support to gain these skills may find themselves floundering.
It is important to realise that leaders are not born with all the skills they will need in their roles and, faced with a skills gap, organisations can take one of two approaches:
• let them acquire the skills on the job (the sink or swim approach); or
• provide structured skills acquisition and other relevant support. Not surprisingly, the latter offers by far the best results. In 2008, Development Dimensions International (DDI) carried out a survey of 600 managers worldwide to look at how the transition to a leadership role impacts the individual and what companies can do to support them.
The biggest and most stressful challenge to taking on a new leadership role was found to be the mental shift required for the next level of management, which includes new skills in communication, planning and team-building.
However, some of the stresses of moving to a leadership role were outweighed by the opportunity to make things happen, a greater respect from peers, increased self-esteem and the opportunity to help others succeed.
SO HOW DO IT COMPANIES IDENTIFY THEIR FUTURE LEADERS?
Wanting and having the right leadership skills are two very different things and, likewise, having the ambition for promotion does not mean the person will easily slip into a manager's shoes.
The first way to identify new leaders is to set clear parameters of which leadership skills will be required in the role and how they will support the company's overall objectives. By doing this, it is possible to identify candidates that have the necessary skills and mindset to take them into a leadership role.
There are many different tools, tests and simulations that can help support the identification process, ranging from simple tick sheets to psychometric profiles and half-day simulation exercises. For any of them to be genuinely useful, there needs to be an understanding from the start about which leadership skills are essential for the new role.
WHAT ARE THE INDICATORS OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERS?
DDI identifies seven distinguishing features of a leader:
• personal awareness and the motivation to learn continuously;
• a motivation to lead;
• a willingness to get results from others and let others take the credit;
• the ability to juggle many competing tasks and deal with ambiguity in the workplace;
• a good track record;
• speed of intellect to meet organisational needs and objectives;
• an ability to balance results with the company culture.
LEAVING THE PAST BEHIND
Leaders at all levels leave behind elements of their previous role with reluctance. After all, it was past achievement that got them into the new role, and moving away from what they know can be uncomfortable.
Organisations need to recognise this and communicate to their new leaders what they should stop doing, as well as provide a clear path in terms of what they should be doing. This will help leaders understand what is expected of them, minimise workload stress and allow them to slip into their new role more comfortably.
IT'S LONELY AT THE TOP
IT is a fast-paced industry with considerable opportunity to fast-track along a career path. However, this means that less experienced leaders are being asked to take on larger workloads and responsibilities. As a result, they need to manage larger teams and take a more hands-off approach to daily activities, focusing more on strategy and team performance, for example.
Leaders can feel more isolated and afraid to admit that some new responsibilities represent a challenge for them. In many cases, the old support network of work colleagues and line manager may not be the right network to offer them constructive support in their new role.
Instead, in the absence of systematic organisational support, new leaders may look outside of the organisation for their support. This should be a warning sign to an organisation and could be indicative of a problem with the support culture within.
In DDI's survey, 41 per cent of new leaders cited family and friends as their biggest support network. Work colleagues can also be a big source of support, although the use of work colleagues for support declines the higher up an organisation you go. Mainly this is due to fewer equal peers and fewer again with whom you might want to share feelings of vulnerability.
If a company can facilitate support networks through opportunities to share ideas and learn from others, it can help new leaders to fit in quickly, learn from their leadership peers and navigate their new, more political and ambiguous role effectively.
Classroom development combined with coaching and mentoring provides considerable support to new and emerging leaders, providing 'safe spaces' in which to examine and discuss weaknesses and to come up with an action plan of how to overcome them.
The earlier coaching is introduced the better, as it is more likely to be adopted and embedded in the management style, contributing to a sustainable culture of self-development within the organisation. If coaching is left too late or until a problem has arisen, there may be more resistance to change and inertia can set in.
CULTURE VERSUS SUCCESS AS A LEADER
Having a supportive coaching culture in place can make it far easier for a new leader to grow and develop. However, no matter how competent a new leader, they may find a career transition harder in a conflicting culture.
If an organisation's culture is highly process-driven, it is unlikely that a strategy based on innovation will be achieved, as process can stifle creativity and lengthen the time to market. Likewise, in a culture where innovation is evident, a strategy that restricts budget and implements more stringent processes may miss the mark.
Some company cultures are fairly closed, with people working more independently, rather than as teams. The organisation may be more political, more difficult to navigate and there may be a reluctance to show any weakness for fear of it being exploited. In this environment it can be much harder to manage the transition.
ENSURING SMOOTH TRANSITION
The damage to a company caused by inadequate leadership can be considerable. Failure to meet the requirements of a new role has a severe impact on the individual, who experiences loss of confidence and a dent in their reputation, which, up until a career transition, was on a path to success. The company will suffer through lost talent and poor return on investment and the team will suffer through loss of motivation and productivity.
The following are all essential elements to the success of a learning and development strategy:
• Facilitate interventions that allow leaders to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. Not least, doing this will help them get into the right mindset and engage in an ongoing programme of professional development.
• Ensure new leaders know what is expected of them. Be clear about their own performance expectations and those of their team.
• Provide ongoing training that maximises strengths, helps address weaknesses and enables new leaders to develop a developmental action plan.
• Ensure that any learning and development is actually applied effectively at work and is measurable.
• Provide appropriate coaching and mentoring for ongoing support and to help to identify further areas for development.
• Provide other resources and processes to help support both new leaders and, in turn, their line managers.
Investment in the right support early on will enable new leaders to hit the ground running, identify and work on any weaknesses and provide a longer-term stability that can have a significant impact on organisational productivity and overall objectives.
This support should not just be about training, but should also cover the other, less obvious needs such as helping a shift in mindset, gaining an understanding of development needs, engagement and coaching.
CHAPTER 3NEW MANAGER TO GREAT MANAGER
Jean Gamester, September 2011
Finally they've made you a manager. Now you can call the shots. Before you jump in though, remember that it's not the technical skills we've developed over the years that make us great managers. Jean Gamester describes how to get the best out of yourself and others in your new role.
MASTER OR SERVANT?
You have the power now. You need to decide how to use it. The easy answer is to throw your weight around. Give orders, praise and punishments. Get them working to your tune. But before you take this route, let me ask you – did you ever enjoy working for those kinds of managers yourself? Do you think those domineering autocrats got the best out of you? I think not. In fact, if you serve your team, then your team will deliver.
Everyone has great potential – we need to create environments where our people can be great. That means that we need to find out what is preventing them from being successful and help them make those things go away. That means a combination of fighting their corner to kill problems and coaching them to work out solutions themselves, so that they are encouraged and empowered to fight their own corner.
We have to support them by providing specific and constructive feedback, describing the things that they do well and providing ideas of how to do things better. So rather than saying 'Well done!' we can say 'I liked the way that design focused on the user experience.' Rather than saying 'You're always late!' we can say 'I've noticed that you were struggling to meet the last deadline – is there something you could do differently to get the next report in on time?'
THE RIGHT PEOPLE
In Good to Great, Jim Collins describes how important it is to have the right people in your team. If you have people who are self-motivated, passionate and hard-working, then you can concentrate on supporting them so they can deliver excellence. Get them on board and they will be flexible and develop the skills you need.
When we get the wrong people, then we spend all of our time trying to persuade them to work hard, to work together, to stop complaining. My approach is this: if I inherit a team I do my best for them, but if I am looking for people to join it, I am very fussy about whether they are the right people.
THEY DON'T NEED TO BE LIKE YOU
Of course your way works – they wouldn't have promoted you if it didn't. The thing is, it works for you. But if everyone was the same as you, then your teams would deliver the output of one mind – yours. How limiting! Imagine what would happen if you pooled the contents of all of those minds and built on the best of all of those ideas.
John F. Kennedy failed to invade Cuba because he created a 'groupthink' situation where everyone agreed with him – because he was the boss and no-one felt they could upset the status quo. After that he set up a system whereby diverse, expert views were sought and debated before decisions were made. When the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, he didn't make the same mistake and the Americans prevailed.
In short, to be truly successful, we need to create an environment where it is safe to challenge and where everyone's view is respected and listened to.
KNOWING IT ALL
Often a person becomes a manager of an area that they are an expert in – which is fantastic, because they know all the answers. They don't need to do as much investigation, as much trial and error as the novices. Easy.
But before you jump in there and solve everything yourself, ask yourself this. How did you become that expert? I bet it is because you tried things out, because someone steered you in the right direction. It's vital that we allow our novices the opportunity to work this stuff out. Otherwise they will be novices for ever and we will have to fix everything ourselves for ever. Or they will join another team where they can learn.
That's not to say that when the chips are down we shouldn't sweep in and fix it fast. We can let the situation dictate. But if, most of the time, we stand aside and guide from the side, then our teams will shine.
SOMETIMES YOU DON'T KNOW IT ALL
The day will come when you're leading a team, but you're not the expert. The first thing to remember is that just because you're not the expert doesn't mean you can't lead. We managers still know about the principles – whether it's design, testing or release management. And most of the things that go wrong are caused by, and can be fixed by, applying those principles. The key is that we have to move beyond the jargon and dive into the true cause of what the problem is.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Management Skills In IT"
by .
Copyright © 2011 British Informatics Society Limited.
Excerpted by permission of BCS The Chartered Institute for IT.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
1 Do we need a softer side?
2 Equipping IT leaders
3 New manager to great manager
4 Understanding business
5 Training a new generation of leaders
6 Moving to the top – becoming CIO
7 Will you need a CIO by 2020?
8 What the CIO can learn from teenagers
9 Leading virtual teams
10 The State of